Republicans are being urged to turn out in large numbers at Easter
commemorations across the country this weekend to reassert “the right
of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland” following
shocking revelations of corruption and fraud in the Dublin parliament
this week.

Sinn Fein’s leader in the Dail, Caoimhghin O Caolain said “never was
there a greater need” to assert the rights of the Irish people, first
declared on the steps of the GPO on Easter 1916.

“Easter 2010 comes just days after the Fianna Fail/Green Government
committed further billions of taxpayers’ money to prop up corrupt banks
and to bail out speculators. They have surrendered public money and
piled debt on this and future generations of Irish citizens. The Fianna
Fail/Green Government has no moral authority and no political mandate
to do this.

“The Proclamation declared the right of the people of Ireland to the
ownership of Ireland and ‘standing on that fundamental right’
proclaimed the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State.

“Today, instead of an Irish Republic we have a NAMA Republic which is
being governed not in the interests of the people but in the interests
of an elite. That same elite has brought our economy to its knees.

“And instead of pursuing ‘the happiness and prosperity of the whole
nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation
equally’, we have a Government that has increased inequality and social
and economic divisions.”

The Taoiseach, Brian Cowen was accused of “economic treason” in the
Dail on Tuesday after his Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan unveiled a
shocking plan to double the national debt in order to bail out a
corrupted banking system.

The banks, led by the infamous Anglo Irish Bank, effectively collapsed
last year after wild speculation in the Irish and international real
estate markets by property developers left the banks shouldering tens
of billions of euro in bad debts.

Many of the developers and their bankers had political connections to
the Fianna Fail government. Cowen, who was Minister for Finance at a
time when the banking system was being undermined by corrupt lending
practices, refused to accept any of the blame for the economic disaster
which they unleashed.

The accusation of treason by Labour leader Eamon Gilmore was “beyond
the pale”, said Cowen, his lips quivering with indignation.

“Any decision I ever made in the privileged position I hold in this, or
any other office, has been in the best interests of my country as I saw
it,” he said.

But politicians and commentators alike were left gasping at the scale
of the cost to the exchequer of the NAMA bailout, which is now up to 80
billion euro and could go higher still.

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s announcement to inject up to 18.3 billion
euro into Anglo Irish Bank alone. it emerged that the directors of the
bank -- some of whom have left the country -- had taken hundreds of
millions of euro from the bank through ‘personal loans’.

But Mr Cowen denied any personal wrongdoing and insisted any decision
he had ever made in office had been in the interests of the country and
taxpayers.

“I want to assure you, whether you agree with them or not, be under no
illusion about the motivations that moved me to make them,” Mr Cowen
told the Labour leader.

“I’d never come into this House and accuse another Irish man of what
you accuse me.”

Mr Gilmore insisted the Taoiseach publish all the advice and
information on which the government decision was made to
unconditionally include Anglo Irish Bank within the terms of the
blanket bank guarantee.

By publishing the documents, the “veil of secrecy” would be lifted on
the events of September 2008. Taxpayers, he argued, were entitled to
know the basis on which the decision to include Anglo Irish Bank was
made.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny also linked the Taoiseach directly to the
banking crisis. He said that lack of regulation and oversight by Mr
Cowen while Finance Minister had caused the “cataclysmic financial
consequence” for every person in the country, but stopped short of
accusing Mr Cowen of corrupt practices.

Sinn Fein’s Arthur Morgan said the scale of the payments to the banks
were “astounding”.

“It should not be forgotten how vociferously Government ministers
rejected criticisms from those of us who warned that the economy was
not built on solid foundations, that a property bubble was developing,
that the exchequer was over dependent on taxes from construction and
consumption. There was time to act, time to turn things around but
there was no will to do so.

“The question has to be asked if we could see this how can those who
were in cabinet during that period claim not to have known. Why did
they turn a blind eye to the actions of bankers and developers? Can a
party that has such close ties to many of those at top of and involved
with Anglo Irish bank really expect us to believe they knew nothing of
what was going on inside that bank?

“It is time to over throw a culture that has existed in this state for
far too long. A wealthy elite who have been pandered to by successive
governments. For decades they have enjoyed a position of privilege and
undue influence over government policies. People rightly want answers
as to how and why government policies which fuelled the property bubble
were allowed to continue in existence when the damage they were doing
was obvious.

“This isn’t about a rogue group of bankers and developers -- this is
about a parasitical section of our society wedded to the two largest
political parties in this state.”

Hundreds of commeorations and wreath-laying ceremonies are being held
this weekend by more than a dozen republican organisations across
Ireland and beyond. Sinn Fein are organising the most, with almost a
hundred such events, followed by Republican Sinn Fein with over fifty.

New political party eirigi chairperson Brian Leeson urged republicans
to attend the party’s five commemorations, including events in Dublin
and Belfast.

He said: “The state of Ireland today indicates that all republicans and
socialists still have a lot to do to make the vision contained in the
1916 Proclamation and the writings of James Connolly a reality.

“Half-a-million people are unemployed in this country, the population
in the Six Counties continues to live under an occupation enforced by
the British government’s armed forces, while the political institutions
in both states serve no one but the wealthy.

“The resting places of Ireland’s patriot dead are the perfect venues
for socialist republicans to recommit themselves to ending these
injustices and building an Ireland that the signatories of the 1916
Proclamation would be proud of.”

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